Save your data with photo upload improvements

The Google Maps for Android* Wait for WiFi feature now gives you better control over uploading photos to the map — so you aren’t burning your mobile data on the go. It just takes one tap to turn the feature on or off.

Use Wait for Wifi

Make sure you have the most recent Google Maps for Android app

Upload a photo to Maps

Pull down the notification shade and tap the “Wait for WiFi” button. You may need to tap to expand the notification bar to see the buttons.

Your current upload will be paused until your device connects to a WiFi network, at which time it will resume automatically

You can pause and resume photo uploads at any time by tapping Wait for Wifi or Upload Now.

Tips and Tricks

Wait for Wifi can be enabled after starting to upload a photo from any source, such as responding to a notification inviting you to take or post a photo, or by tapping “Add Photos” from a place’s page.

Make sure you have the latest version of the Google Maps app, and enable notifications in Settings.

Google Maps will remember your last setting and apply it to your next upload. So, if you always want to wait for wifi, you can set it once and forget it.

Partially completed uploads will be saved for several days. Restarting your device will delete the partially completed upload.

If you've already backed up a photo to Google Photos, then it doesn’t need to be uploaded to Google again, so the photo will be posted without waiting for wifi.

If you dismiss the notification, Google Maps will try again a few hours later.

This is a very welcome update @TokyoJoe - Mobile data in Australia is very expensive and our plans often have low limits. This was something asked about at the Summit last year and I'm pleased to see another of the things we asked for ticked off in time for the upcoming summit. Awesome work.

The Google Maps for Android* Wait for WiFi feature now gives you better control over uploading photos to the map — so you aren’t burning your mobile data on the go. It just takes one tap to turn the feature on or off.

Use Wait for Wifi

Make sure you have the most recent Google Maps for Android app

Upload a photo to Maps

Pull down the notification shade and tap the “Wait for WiFi” button. You may need to tap to expand the notification bar to see the buttons.

Your current upload will be paused until your device connects to a WiFi network, at which time it will resume automatically

You can pause and resume photo uploads at any time by tapping Wait for Wifi or Upload Now.

Tips and Tricks

Wait for Wifi can be enabled after starting to upload a photo from any source, such as responding to a notification inviting you to take or post a photo, or by tapping “Add Photos” from a place’s page.

Make sure you have the latest version of the Google Maps app, and enable notifications in Settings.

Google Maps will remember your last setting and apply it to your next upload. So, if you always want to wait for wifi, you can set it once and forget it.

Partially completed uploads will be saved for several days. Restarting your device will delete the partially completed upload.

If you've already backed up a photo to Google Photos, then it doesn’t need to be uploaded to Google again, so the photo will be posted without waiting for wifi.

If you dismiss the notification, Google Maps will try again a few hours later.

This is a feature that is really helpful and I have been waiting for it. Thank you Google for this improvement.

But beware! Google Photos has removed the switch to wait for charging to synchronize the pictures. So if your pictures are synchronized with Google Photos first and then added to maps, you might get the old bug that if you delete it from your Google Photos App, they are deleted in Google Maps too.

The Google Maps for Android* Wait for WiFi feature now gives you better control over uploading photos to the map — so you aren’t burning your mobile data on the go. It just takes one tap to turn the feature on or off.

Use Wait for Wifi

Make sure you have the most recent Google Maps for Android app

Upload a photo to Maps

Pull down the notification shade and tap the “Wait for WiFi” button. You may need to tap to expand the notification bar to see the buttons.

Your current upload will be paused until your device connects to a WiFi network, at which time it will resume automatically

You can pause and resume photo uploads at any time by tapping Wait for Wifi or Upload Now.

Tips and Tricks

Wait for Wifi can be enabled after starting to upload a photo from any source, such as responding to a notification inviting you to take or post a photo, or by tapping “Add Photos” from a place’s page.

Make sure you have the latest version of the Google Maps app, and enable notifications in Settings.

Google Maps will remember your last setting and apply it to your next upload. So, if you always want to wait for wifi, you can set it once and forget it.

Partially completed uploads will be saved for several days. Restarting your device will delete the partially completed upload.

If you've already backed up a photo to Google Photos, then it doesn’t need to be uploaded to Google again, so the photo will be posted without waiting for wifi.

If you dismiss the notification, Google Maps will try again a few hours later.

Tried it, rather pointless if you have to manually turn it on, ie holt the upload. If you are on a fast connection by the time the notification comes one or two photos are already uploaded. Making the whole thing useless as it's using data. Why can't it just work like google keep?

I wish this option will become a setting in Maps settings. In this way, before we disconnect from Wifi, we can always make sure not Mobile Data is used for Photo uploads. (As before we can dig up the option from the upload action, there will be some data already used.)